phil stanbridge

aha! Cheers!

I can't find the section on the website about units? Can you show me where?

I'll just post in here as this is the last post in a considerable time on this forum - what's PT boats like? Can you recommend it? I'm in Ayr as well by the way :-)

I tried your nhancer file - it has definitely improved things to a degree. There isn't any flashing as such, but I'm not sure I like it regardless. It does something else that I cant put my finger on. Image quality appears saturated maybe? Also, because it is a bodge rather than a fix I don't think the lighting side of things is working as it should now. For example, a great example of this is the riot mission in the British campaign which I am on now. I get no flickering flashing light textures during play (WEGO) so in theory it has worked, but is has 'dummed' down some other things as a result. Just my opinon of course - perhaps you can still work on it? It's a very difficult call. I'll remove it and try it again. See which version I prefer. Actually, I think the only way I can remove it is to uninstall? There is no applet in Win 7, makes it difficult to know what is going on.

I only got the card today mate so I will have a look and see. But I'm really pleased with the overall performance in Shock Force.

Quite interesting stuff so I'll share my findings. The latest Cat drivers (10.7) were unstable for me in Shock Force, so I went back to 10.5 - these performed better graphically than 10.7 but I was experiencing crashes during saves and in the campaign! Not so with the 10.7's. Food for thought for all those suffering crashes. It may be the card drivers!! Unfortunately, I was experiencing terrible texture tearing with the 10.7s which is why I downgraded my drivers. Then the 10.5s would lead to crashes. So a very mixed bag. I could have gone on testing drivers, but I changed my card instead. The Nvidia on the other hand is a breath of fresh air. Certainly not perfect I'll add, with the annoying flashing textures problem but it's not as severe at the ATI problems in my opinion. One thing I would add as a significant plus, the game is so much smoother with the latest nvidia drivers. I had about 20 minutes between testing the game using ATI and then on the Nvidia. I couldn't believe how much better it was playing. Totally smooth scrolling. The ATI would almost judder in comparision - as if it was struggling to manage the textures, with any driver I tried. Take into account that both cards are almost the same in terms of raw performance. Also take into account the Nvidia is newer, cheaper and quieter. I think it's a no brainer if you are in the market for a next gen card. I just hope to god Nvidia see fit to fix the flashing texture problem for us!

Sounds interesting!

OverVolts, don't worry, BFC are very helpful when it comes to sorting out installation issues like that. Just be patient I'm sure they will resolve it. As for the game itself, it struggles to some extent on my system too, but I sit back and think to myself, hang on, exactly what is this game trying to do here. All those ballistics calculations, LOS etc etc. There is so much more going on here than meets the eye, it must really stress the cpu. I've started the British campaign, and the first couple of missions sail through, but as the maps get larger and the units increase, things start to slow down. I'm not saying it's perfect, and perhaps the code does need to be optimized further, but these guys aren't your everyday developers either.

I'm thinking this must be around the corner - I can't understand why it has taken so long. Maybe new features, like the QB generator, or the campaigns or something. Something worthwhile has obviously been added that's how I see it

My game is running reasonably slow too - but I believe it has always been like this. Also, the higher the AA or AF the slower it becomes. The more detailed the map the slower it will scroll around. You compare an urban map to an open map. If you have a lot of wheeled/tracked vehicles in one area, (as in your screenies) then try scrolling, it will also be slow. What are your game settings out of interest? For what its worth, I swear that my Intel i5 at stock was a faster perfomer in Shock Force than my AMD X4 955 @ 3.5ghz is now.

Yep, I realise that, I was talking about what happens in reality.

Far from it actually. Credit where credit is due, BFC have done a fab job on Shock Force, and I'm always trying to promote their games on the other forums I peruse. I don't know how these things work out in real life - that was all. I would imagine that British sniper teams go through the similar training as their US counterparts, (without knowing all the details of course) and this would mean they achieve their 'elite' status in much the same way. Are sniper teams classed as 'regular' infantry?

My save games are under a folder called 'Game Files' which you will find under Program Files (either 32 bit or 64 bit) /Battlefront/Shock force etc

The British have mostly pathetic equipment and small squads. I realised the Marines/US Army had larger Sniper teams, but didn't appreciate they were up a level in experience too. That's just not cricket is it You would expect an elite unit such as the sniper to have the necessary rating. I wonder why BFC did this. Must be a reason.

That's a nice idea - but is it realistic.....

I wouldn't call that a 'fair' exchange personally. Actually if I recall, I had some success with my sniper teams in a marines campaign mission. They were high up on top of a roof, but mostly out of harms way. This one team took out an entire squad, RPG team, HQ unit and so on. Must have been about 20 men lying dead or injured in front of me. That was impressive, but that is few and far between. As for silenced weapons - not sure - I think one Marine sniper team uses silenced rifles but I don't know for sure. But the British snipers in comparison - doesn't seem to be any comparison. They seem next to useless unfortunately. I will try some of the above advice however. I'll stop using them in recon roles, and try and get them high up somewhere. What sort of effective ranges should I be able to use them with? I know conditions make all the difference.

Help!! I'm really struggling with this. I don't know how to use my sniper teams or machine gun teams effectively? I tend to use my snipers for recon, as they move more reactively than any other infatry unit, plus being small teams, stand a much better chance of slipping away. But when I use them in their defined role, as snipers, I tend to have very little luck. I either can't find LOS unless I'm on top of the enemy, or their shots are so off target they'll use virtually all of their ammunition before hitting anything (then maybe give themselves away in the process). I'm playing a superb mission now by Paper Tiger, and I have couple of snipers at hand, but I don't know what to do with them. I've tried placing them on hills, or areas with decent LOS where I know the enemy is and they can't see anything! Similar problem apply with the machine gun teams - they should have great range, but I can never find anywhere decent enough on the map to make use of them, so I end up holding back.

Well, in my opinion, exposure is good. Finished or not, please expose

Yeah I'm pretty sure - The squads are all from the same platoon. I'll double check! Edit:- Doh! You're right, I had my 1 section/2 sections mixed up with A and B teams.

Just playing through some single missions until I feel confident in tackling the campaign once again. I've noticed that I cannot get British infantry squads to join once they have been split. Any ideas?

Oh my - Syrian Air Support!! I really didn't expect that. So to the obvious questions. Will the Shilka be able to be used in its primary role? Will Syrian air support feature in the new campaigns?

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm using the latest drivers, having just 'upgraded' my drivers using the device manager, but I think I'll download those ones there just in case. I'm using Win 7 Pro, and Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family. I'll see if i can find out what set of drivers it has installed first.

I've just purchased a new little laptop which has enough juice to play Shock Force - the only problem I have is a minor one admittedly, but annoying none the less. The white text that you see in the menus is slightly blurred or corrupted - anyone else have this problem? I'm thinking it must be a Intel 4500 driver issue, or something to do with opengl, but I'm not sure. Does anyone know of a workaround?

I can't wait to chuck some of that HE around..

I can't comment on the first problem as I've never seen it myself, but could the second be associated with some kind of fog of war thing? As there is no AAA modelled in the game, there's bog all you can do in a single turn anyway.